Alton On The Spot puts you on the spot, with what's hot and what's not in the wonderful world of art and creativity. From the galleries and the museums, the runways and the airwaves, the streets and the stages - I seek the beauty of inspiration, high and low, anywhere and everywhere I can find it.

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Banning ART - The Houston Press

UH Removes Gun Art Display From Exhibit, Pretty Much Making Artist's Point for Him

Artist Alton DuLaney couldn't be mad that
University of Houston officials censored his gun art from an exhibit at
the Blaffer Art Museum — they basically made his point for him.

Despite
the fact that students will literally be sitting in English class with
loaded guns on them in just three months, apparently DuLaney's exhibit,
showing an unloaded revolver with a cartoonish banner that says "ART"
protruding from its barrel, is all too threatening right now. Unlike
private schools, UH is required to implement the new campus carry law
slated to go into effect this August whether it likes it or not (from
the looks of its restrictive campus-carry proposal,
it doesn't like it). But even if DuLaney's exhibit went up in August
while students were packing heat on the sidewalks, the UH Office of
General Counsel has, interestingly, said that DuLaney's gun art still
likely wouldn't have been allowed. (Yeah, we're still waiting on the
office's further explanation for that.)

Now, the ART banner is the
only item behind the glass, but DuLaney said the gun's absence may say
more than its presence: “It proved my point about how controversial this
object was,” he said.

DuLaney had planned to make a statement about the power of guns by
juxtaposing the revolver with the "bang" comic-book-like graphic that
says "ART." That cartoonish element reminded DuLaney of how guns are so
omnipresent in Texas culture that, even for kids in this state, toy guns
are part of growing up. He was wondering: If he transformed the gun to
look this way, would it still have as much power? After UH's decision,
the answer was, well, apparently yes.

“There's an obvious implication of power that this thing has, that this
inanimate object has when combined with ammunition and intent to create
damage,” DuLaney said. “So I wanted to create a piece that said all of
that, but that was diffused by being cloaked in a statement of art."

The UH Office of General Counsel posted a two-paragraph explanation
directly beneath DuLaney's display case for why the school banned the
gun from the show, citing the Texas law that bans guns on campus (until
August). Never mind the fact that someone else created an entire exhibit
of prison shanks and nunchucks that are evenly laid out in a
seven-foot-long display box — that's apparently fair game.

Which
is pretty funny to DuLaney, given that, even if people were carrying
deadly weapons on their way to class, his gun art (but not prison
shanks) would still be off-limits...behind a glass case.

At the time he thought up the display, conversations were swirling around campus carry, some with heated intensity.DuLaney
says his display is intended to be neutral, but that he was hoping it
would still “fan the flames of dialogue” amid controversial debate. At
UH, it was apparent just how touchy the subject had become among faculty
after one professor even directed faculty in a presentation
to “Be careful discussing sensitive topics,” to “Drop certain topics
from your curriculum” and to “Not 'go there' if you sense anger.”
“There's a weariness or fragility to having that conversation,” DuLaney
said, hoping his artsy gun would eliminate some of that.